HOW OFFICES WILL CHANGE IN 2021.
With vaccinations beginning, many companies are imagining some return to office life. To get a sense of what 2021 might hold, here are some predictions.
1 BALANCING BOOKS
As work-from-home employees flee high-cost cities for cheaper locales, employers can recruit from elsewhere too, making location-based salary less of a focus. If you move to a lower-cost place and your pay is already above market, your pay may not be cut, but you may see a slower rate of increase.
2 VIDEO CHATS WILL GET SMARTER — AND MAYBE CREEPIER
Cisco Systems will use artificial intelligence to recognize clapping, raised hands, a thumbs up or thumbs down, to help gauge reactions to an idea without requiring attendees to all speak over each other. Microsoft Teams' AI recognizes what tasks participants agreed to complete and sends reminders, and creates searchable meeting transcripts. Microsoft has filed a patent for a system using sensors, cameras and software to examine body language, expressions and participant contributions to create an overall quality score for a meeting.
3 WHO'S ON FIRST?
With some employees returning and others working from home, managing flexibility will take work. Someone going to the office on Tuesdays and Thursdays, for example, will want their teammates there. It will involve co-ordinating workers' schedules so they aren't just doing Zoom meetings from a different location.
4 THE OFFICE BUBBLE
Working in teams at the office will lead to louder conversations and the risk of large groups in a small space, so planners are designing both individual seating and group spaces with full wall dividers. “It's an opportunity to fix what wasn't working in the office before,” a design expert said.
5 PART-TIME ARRANGEMENTS
Starting work at 4 a.m. to later help the kids with virtual learning isn't exactly flexibility. Employers may move part-time arrangements, such as a fourday work week, up to the manager and professional level — considering how to adjust pay and benefits and how to cover and co-ordinate the work. “This may just be the dawn of the era we've been working toward for many years,” one expert said.